


Scent

by Akiko_Natsuko



Series: Gratsu [22]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Dragon Mates, Established Relationship, Fluff, Love, M/M, Nesting, Scent Marking, Scenting, dragon instincts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-17 07:17:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16511741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akiko_Natsuko/pseuds/Akiko_Natsuko
Summary: Gray has long since come to terms with the quirks of dating a Dragon-slayer, however, is he really ready for Natsu to make things more permanent?





	Scent

   Gray grumbled sleepily as he slowly began to stir, instinctively reaching out towards the other side of the bed even before he’d even managed to convince his eyes to open, only to stiffen when his searching hand came up empty.

“Natsu?” He asked rolling onto his side and managing to force his eyes open, only to confirm what his fingers had told him, and that there was no Dragon-slayer curled up next to him and snoring. Normally he would have thought nothing of it, but this was one of those rare days when they had no need to find a job and they’d decided to spend the day lazing around at home. _So, where the hell is he?_ The sheets were cool to the touch which indicated he had been gone a few minutes at least, and the Ice mage sighed as he turned his head in the opposite direction and stared at the clock. It was a little after seven in the morning so why weren’t they both still fast asleep and enjoying the chance for a rare lie-in?

   For a moment he contemplated rolling over and just going back to sleep, after all just because his flame-brained boyfriend was up and about at this hour it didn’t mean that he had to be as well. However, he already knew that there was no way he would be able to drop off, even with the sleepiness that was still tugging at him. At some point he had got to the point where it was hard to sleep without the Fire mage beside him, and it was impossible when he knew that Natsu was supposed to be in bed right at that moment. Muttering under his breath and promising retribution on the Dragon-slayer if he’d sneaked out to get a snack again, he pushed the covers aside and staggered to his feet with a defeated groan.

   Rubbing at bleary eyes he stilled when there was a muffled bump and a soft curse from the direction of the living room and his eyebrows arched, whilst he was relieved that Natsu was at least still in the flat, his curiosity and irritation was increasing by the second. Pausing long enough to snatch a hoodie off the laundry pile, not caring that it was one of Natsu’s, he tugged it on before striding for the door. Natsu had better have a good reason for this, or he was going to well… he wasn’t sure what he was going to do, because whilst he liked to think that he would be able to punish Natsu, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold out against the idiot. It was a major weakness, and one that the Dragon-slayer had exploited on more than one occasion, but he could at least drag him back to bed, and make him stay there until it was a decent hour.

   He was so wrapped up in his thoughts of curling back up with the Dragon-slayer that it took his mind a couple of minutes to acknowledge the sight that met his eyes as he stepped into the living room, and even when it had, he found himself gaping in confusion as he came to a halt. Natsu, clad only in his boxers appeared to be fully engrossed in tidying and cleaning the living room. There was a pile of cleaning supplies next to him, but what really caught the Ice mage’s attention was how after a moment Natsu would pause, rubbing his jaw against whatever it was that he was holding or cleaning at the time and then resuming with what he had been doing just before, and Gray felt an inkling of recognition dawning at the back of his mind.

   He had seen that gesture plenty of times and experienced even more often. The first time the Dragon-slayer had started rubbing up against him like that he had been confused and a little bit freaked out, and it hadn’t helped that Natsu had started babbling something about needing to claim Gray and protect him from others. In the end Gray had needed to turn to Gajeel and Wendy for an explanation as they were the only ones seemed unfazed by the odd behaviour, and thankfully they had been able to give him the explanation that he was looking for. It was the draconic way of scent-marking, a way for them to claim ownership of their mate, or family members and a warning sign for others to stay away, although unfortunately it only worked on other Dragon slayers as no one else could pick up on the scents and more than once they had ended up in sticky situations because of that.

In fact, Lyon still hadn’t completely recovered from their last meeting.

_They had decided to spend a couple more days in Crocus following the end of the Games and the resolution of the situation with the Celestial gate, both to come to grips with everything that had happened and how close they had come to losing each other, and to make the most of the fact that they were in the Capital. Beginning with a shopping trip with the girls, the couple had decided to spend the afternoon wandering around and taking in the sights, although large parts of the city were still in the process of being rebuilt. They had just turned to head up towards the Palace when they had heard Gray’s name being shouted._

_“GRAY!” Turning they found Lyon hurrying towards them, and Gray barely had time to notice that Natsu was stiffening before the other Ice mage had grabbed him in a hug, apparently still unsettled by their brief glimpse of a future where Gray had died, Gray automatically returned the hug, unable to deny Lyon, but his eyes widened as he had caught a glimpse of the expression on Natsu’s face. The Dragon-slayer looked like he was ready to explode at any moment, and Gray was just about to untangle himself and find out what was wrong, when he felt someone grabbing hold of both him and Lyon and wrenching them apart._

_“What the hell are you doing?” It was Sting, blue eyes blazing as he glared at Gray for a moment before shifting his ire onto a completely bemused Lyon. “He smells of Natsu! Don’t touch him!” Gray wanted to groan. Whilst Lyon was fully aware of his relationship with Natsu, he had never tried to explain the ins and outs of what it meant to date a Dragon-slayer, before he could try and explain though warm arms had snaked around him and he found himself pulled against Natsu, the shorter teen reaching up to rub his jaw against Gray’s face with a soft growl._

_“Natsu?” Lyon was looking between Sting and Natsu, gawping as he watched the latter continuing to rub his face against Gray’s chest, and finally he turned to Gray to demand answers. “What the hell are they talking about?” Gray tried to respond, only to be distracted by Natsu shaking his head and gripping him even tighter, and his hand dropped to the Fire mage’s shoulder as he realised that he was trembling somewhat. “Gray…?”_

_“Sorry,” Gray mumbled, pausing when an unhappy noise escaped the Dragon-slayer wrapped around him and he reached down and wrapped his arms around Natsu, his voice soothing as he tried to get him to calm down. “Natsu it’s alright.” Normally it wouldn’t have been a problem, but Natsu was still coming to terms with the fact that for a split second Gray had been dead, and therefore wasn’t in the mood to tolerate even friends or allies too close at the moment. Once he felt some of the trembling beginning to subside he shifted his gaze back to Lyon, sighing at the mixture of confusion and alarm in the other’s face as he stared at the pair of them. “It’s a dragon thing…”_

_He’d managed to more or less explain it to Lyon, with Natsu finally calming down enough to apologise before they parted ways. However, the lingering confusion in the other Ice mage’s eyes when he had left, had told Gray that he still didn’t fully understand, and it was the first time that he had fully realised that the oddities which he had come to accept as normal and part of his daily life, were still oddities in the eyes of outsiders. And for a couple of weeks afterwards he had been ridiculously conscious of anything out of the ordinary that Natsu did. Eventually though he had forgotten about it once more, Natsu was strange and an idiot, but he didn’t want that to change, even if meant dealing with odd looks and questions from time to time._

   Blinking he refocused on the scene at hand, his eyes narrowing as he realised that Natsu had given no sign of being aware of his presence. Something that shouldn’t be possible given how good his senses were, which more than once had been a bone of contention between them, as it made trying to surprise the idiot with anything practically impossible, although Gray had become fairly good at exploiting weak points. Pulling his thoughts back onto the topic at hand he took a cautious step into the room before asking softly.

“What are you doing?”

   Natsu let out a startled noise that sounded more like something Wendy would make, and the Ice mage felt his lips quirking up, although he managed to stop himself smiling just as Natsu whirled around to stare at him with wide-eyes. For a couple of minutes, they just stared at one another in silence, Gray waiting for a response, whilst Natsu seemed to be slowly turning redder by the moment. However, eventually tiring of waiting Gray arched an eyebrow at his boyfriend, silently demanding an answer to his question.

“Tidying up…” Natsu mumbled, blushing wildly as he shifted under Gray’s gaze, looking for all the world like a child that had just been caught with his fingers in the cookie jar. Gray was struggling not to smile at the sight, aware that there was probably something more serious going on than Natsu was letting on at the moment, but he couldn’t help but store the image away, silently promising himself that he would get that expression out of Natsu again in the future. For now, though he sighed and gestured towards the clock on the wall before asking in a somewhat sceptical tone.

“At seven in the morning?”

“I…” Natsu blinked, glancing up at the clock as well and looking somewhat taken aback by the time, and dark eyes narrowed in concern. What the hell was going on in the Dragon-slayer’s mind for him to not even realise what the time was? Before he could say anything though Natsu had turned back to him, fingers clenching around the cushion that he was still clinging to, and there was an odd light in the olive eyes that met his gaze before the Dragon-slayer whispered faintly. “I needed to.”

“Needed to?” Gray echoed, glancing around the room with knitted brows, noting just how many things had been moved and cleaned and wondering if the Dragon-slayer had scent-marked everything. Although from the way that Natsu was slowly inching back towards what he had been doing, he would guess that the answer was yes, and the earlier recognition returned along with the sense that there was something more to this. Pinching the bridge of his nose he wracked his brain, trying to recall everything that Wendy and Gajeel had told him about what he could expect in the future and his eyes widened as one particular conversation came back to him.

_“Has Natsu-san stared marking other things?” Wendy had asked abruptly one day, dropping down into the seat beside Gray as he watched Natsu as the Fire mage perused the job board, the Ice mage taking a moment for the question to register had been entranced by the look of concentration on Natsu’s face. However, as her words finally registered he tore his attention away from his boyfriend and turned back to her with a frown._

_“Like what?”_

_“Clothes…Furniture…stuff like that,” Wendy replied, a hint of red in her cheeks and dark eyes narrowed at the sight. Where was she going with this?_

_“The odd piece of clothing, usually when we’re on different jobs or we have to split up,” he replied after a moment of trying to think of what he had seen Natsu scent-marking, but primarily the Dragon-slayer had been focused on him, although it had got more frequent of late. “Why?”_

_“Gajeel-san said that he’s been becoming more possessive of you and that he might be ready to start nesting,” Wendy explained in a rush, she had wound up being the one to explain this to Gray as Gajeel was currently caught up in his own ‘nesting’ with Levy, but she almost wished that they could have waited till after they were done. It was hard for an unmated Dragon-slayer to fully explain the meaning of this, and she sighed as she caught the confused expression that had appeared on the Ice mage’s face._

_“Nesting?”_

_“When a dragon knows for sure they’ve found their mate, the one they want to stay with for life,” Wendy hesitated for a moment, realising that Gray looked as though Erza had just hit him over the head, a hint of a blush entering pale cheeks as he shot a wide-eyed glance towards Natsu. It was hard not to giggle at the sight, everyone in the guild knew that the pair were going to last for a long time, it just appeared that, that fact hadn’t dawned on Gray yet and she barely managed to fight back the urge as Gray turned back to her, and she waited until he looked a little calmer before continuing. “When that happens, they are compelled to make sure that their home or nest smells properly of both of them. It’s a stronger claim than mere scent-marking, as it goes far deeper and lasts for a very long time.”_

_“W-what do I do? If that happens?”_

_“That depends,” Wendy replied hesitantly, surprised that he was even asking. Surely, he had no intention of anything ending between them? The thought of someone turning down nesting was so foreign to her that she struggled to come up with a way to reply, but she knew that he needed to know so that he didn’t screw anything up by accident. “If you’re happy with it, then let it continue…just be aware that as you have different houses, you’ll need to spend some extra time at his so that your scent will mix with his. If not…then you can stop him…”_

_“But?”_

_“He might give up completely and he might not scent-mark you again.” Gray blinked at the response, having to translate it from draconic terms to normal terms, and he blanched as it dawned on him that she meant that it would result in them breaking up or worse…_

_“I see…”_

  That conversation had been over a month ago and at some point he had let it drift out of his thoughts, after all Natsu had seemed to continue like normal, and the Ice mage had decided that it wasn’t worth worrying about it until it was necessary. He just hadn’t expected it to come about so quickly, and he felt a surge of panic at the realisation that was what he had just walked in on. For a moment all words deserted him, and he found himself unable to do anything but stare wide-eyed at the Dragon-slayer who had seized the silence to his advantage and had moved onto marking another cushion. However, it was the look of utter contentment on Natsu’s face as he worked that broke through the panic gripping the Gray _. How can I fear something that makes him this happy? That makes me this happy…?_ He added feeling a fluttery feeling in his chest as he realised that Natsu wanted to claim him like this, and that despite all their fights and bickering, he was the one that Natsu wanted in his life.

“Natsu, are you…” He hesitated, suddenly wanting this more than anything and afraid now that he had misunderstood the situation, and the last word came out as a barely audible whisper. “Nesting?”

“Don’t say it!” Natsu yelped, turning back to him with wide eyes, having clearly not expected to hear that word from his lips and Gray blinked in confusion at the response. _Natsu?_

“Why not?”

“It’s embarrassing,” Natsu muttered, glancing away and missing the startled look that had passed over the Ice mage’s face. In all the time that he had known Natsu, he had never once heard him complaining about his draconic nature, even with the odd bumps in the road they’d encountered since they’d started dating the Dragon-slayer seemed to have taken his own instincts and sometimes odd behaviour in his stride. So, what is so different about this? He had no answer to that question, but he certainly didn’t want Natsu to feel ashamed of something that was sending warm, fluttery feelings thorough his chest.

“It’s sweet,” Gray corrected him gently, feeling Natsu’s temperature sky-rocketing and he was somewhat surprised when he didn’t receive a flaming fist to the face. The Dragon-slayer normally bristled at being called anything remotely close to cute or sweet, whether directly or because of something he was doing. However, this time he appeared to be trying to see just how red he could go, and Gray sighed as he realised that Natsu still hadn’t been able to bring himself to look at him, and he closed the last of the distance between them, reaching out and resting his hand gently against Natsu’s cheek as he encouraged him gently. “Look at me.” It took a couple of minutes before Natsu was able to bring himself to obey, but once the olive eyes were fixed on his he added softly. “I know exactly what this means.”

“How?” Natsu asked.

“Do you remember back when we first started going out and you kept coming out with odd things, that I went to talk to Gajeel and Wendy?” Gray asked gently, waiting until Natsu nodded before continuing. “They gave me a crash course in draconic behaviour, including stuff that would happen in the future.” Even now they kept coming up with tips and advice, and now he was grateful that they had never stopped, the thought that he could have messed this up just because he didn’t understand the full implications was terrifying.

“Oh,” Natsu mumbled, glancing down as he mulled over Gray’s words. When he had woken that morning with the urge to nest he had wanted to wake him first and explain, terrified of how he might react, but the instinct had been too strong, and he had shot through here, praying that his boyfriend would understand. It had never once dawned on him that Gray would know exactly what he was doing, and understand the meaning of it, and he felt hope fluttering through his chest as he shyly lifted his head once more to meet Gray’s gaze. “Does this mean…?”

   Gray knew exactly what he was asking, and he also knew that the Dragon-slayer had always responded better to actions than mere words. Gently withdrawing his hand from Natsu’s cheek and ignoring the brief flash of panic that had appeared in the olive eyes, he leant down and mimicked the Dragon-slayer’s actions as he rubbed his jaw and cheek against Natsu’s. A soft smile flittering across his lips as Natsu’s eyes widened, tears brimming in the corners, and he reached up gently to brush them away before reaching down with his other hand to grab the cushion that Natsu was still clinging to. Making sure not to lose eye contact with the Dragon-slayer, he stepped back just enough so that he could bring it up to face level and repeat his previous gesture, hearing the soft rumble that went through the Dragon-slayer at the action.

“G-Gray…?”

“Idiot,” Gray breathed dropping the cushion, and stepping closer to Natsu once more, dipping his head and catching the Dragon-slayer’s lips in a gentle kiss before letting his forehead come to rest against Natsu’s. “Yes. The answer is always going to be yes.”


End file.
